Heat's 2018 NBA draft could evolve into midnight madness

Such is the timing for a team without a pick in either round Thursday but also with the need to fill out rosters for two summer leagues, as well as eventually stock its G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

So after pick No. 60, as Thursday turns to Friday, Heat Vice President of Player Personnel Chet Kammerer and the team's scouting staff will begin working the phones in advance of a summer camp that opens a week later.

"We've had players that have gone undrafted and end up being a part of this," Kammerer said, with Tyler Johnson and Udonis Haslem standing as a prime examples from the current roster. "And it starts, I think, with who we liked if we might have picked somewhere in the 40s or 50s that end up not getting drafted.

"And then you certainly want to be prepared to take the three or four, five players that we liked, that we would like to bring to summer league. And of course now with our G League and two-way deals, that becomes even more valuable."

Even with the demise of the Orlando summer league, the Heat have maintained their commitment to two such tryout schedules, participating in summer leagues in July in Sacramento and Las Vegas.

With only Bam Adebayo expected to move on to summer league from the season-ending 15-man playoff roster, there will be ample opportunities for undrafted players, including ones the Heat have scouted overseas for that very purpose.

"It's definitely part of our thoughts," Kammerer said of filling two summer rosters. "Adam [Simon, the Heat's assistant general manager] and I were in Europe for about eight days. We were over there and we not only saw players that could be in the draft, Europeans, but we purposely tried to watch some players that we kind of have had our eye on over the course of the year and we've gotten tentative commitments from them for our summer-league team.

"And usually what we do when we go over there, we look for guys who are relatively young, maybe a year or two out of college that we try to bring them back and put 'em in our summer league."

Kammerer said it is about more than securing commitments from undrafted players.

"Some we maybe have only for one of the leagues, but some we might get a commitment from them for the entire summer," he said. "We try to get at least four, five players that are not in this draft, not what I would call veterans, but players who have had at least one or two years of international competition, and we blend those in with our draft picks or players that we liked, who we have followed, that we put on our summer-league team to get a shot at becoming a part of the Heat franchise."

Kammerer said just because a player does not make the draft cut does not mean he can't make the cut with the Heat at some stage.

"I'm going to look at those guys as guys that we think can fill our roster in Sioux Falls and hope one of 'em is going to develop into a player who can be a roster player now, early, and maybe can develop into some type of rotation player," he said. "I don't think it's an impossible task."